


Status: Or, An Incomplete Look at Some of Loki’s Motivations

by ArgentNoelle



Series: Meta/Essays [1]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), Thor (Movies)
Genre: Asgardians - Freeform, Character Development, Character Study, Class Issues, Essays, Family, Gen, Identity Issues, Identity Reveal, Loki Has Issues, Loki-centric, Meta, Motivations, Poor Loki, Post-Avengers (2012), Post-Thor (2011), Pre-Avengers (2012), Pre-Thor (2011), Pre-Thor: The Dark World, The Avengers (2012) - Freeform, The Avengers - Freeform, Thor (2011) - Freeform, Thor Is Not Stupid, Thor: The Dark World, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Villains, Warning: Loki, character's life philosophy, life philosophy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 2,833
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ArgentNoelle/pseuds/ArgentNoelle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Meta that explores the ideas of why Loki does what he does in the movies through the lens of status; and how many things Loki has done since the reveal of his identity has been to regain the place that he has lost, through any means possible.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. THOR 1 – BEFORE THE REVEAL

 

  


 

So this is Loki’s general worldview as regarding status, where every lower level takes something away.

Loki’s place before and at the beginning of the first movie is right there at the top, not only an Asgardian, but one of the two princes (Thor is the heir, technically, which places him slightly higher than Loki, but for all intents and purposes Loki’s peer group consists of him and Thor.) Loki is above everyone else (besides his parents) in stature, which is his place—he takes it for granted and it is in a large way an accident of birth. In the competition between him and Thor, however, a competition based on _worth_ , somehow Loki feels he always loses out. And this is a personal failing, whereas his status (though it allows him to feel superior to everyone around him) is not personal. So his worth, status-wise, is high, but his personal sense of himself is that he is still slightly inadequate.

Loki has never had much of an _intrinsic_ sense of self; his worldview, and his view of himself within it, very much depends upon one’s place in the world. Thus, that this structure is recognized and continues is important to him, **respect and proper deference** to those whom it is owed matters to him to a greater extent—and he is more keenly aware of it—than Thor.


	2. TRANSGRESSION OF BOUNDARIES

Take the deleted scene of him and Thor before the coronation: the servant that has come to bring the princes’ wine moves above his place by laughing when he should not; therefore, by means of the wine-to-snakes prank, Loki puts him back in his place. What to Thor is merely an amusing prank, in which the presence of the servant is very much secondary, means much more to Loki, and is motivated by a desire to uphold the proper status quo by punishing one who transgressed boundaries.

It’s an interesting role for someone whose mythological status as a trickster revolves around being the one to transgress boundaries (but even there, in the end, the status quo will be restored, as the trickster not only helps define the boundaries, but in the end is either punished for his misdeeds or contributes to a solution to the problem, and many times these things overlap—with the re-affirming involving the trickster’s humiliation, for example)

Another instance of this comes when, after the ill-fated trip to Jotunheim, Loki reveals that he had warned one of the guards where they were doing, and that’s why their movements had been discovered. “I told him to go to Odin after we’d left,” Loki says. “He should be flogged for taking so long. We should never have reached Jotunheim.” The guard has failed to adhere to what was expected of him, therefore punishment is required.


	3. THOR 1 – AFTER THE REVEAL

“I only ever wanted to be your equal _._ ”

Then, of course, the matter of Loki’s true birth comes to light. Where before Loki’s station had been the highest, now he is suddenly on the very bottom of the ladder, below all those whom he is accustomed to being superior. The striving to be equal to Thor, which before was barred only by Loki’s personal failings (and which, therefore, might someday change) is now brought incredibly out of reach. Thor is a prince of Asgard, a true-born Asgardian. Loki is a monster. And yet he still feels like a prince of Asgard, and still feels like he deserves to be. And yet he also feels like he _in no way_ deserves to be. Someone has to be punished for a transgression of boundaries, and now it’s him. He’s trying to reach above himself. He both deserves it and does not deserve it. He must be put in his place. But _what is_ his place?


	4. THOR 1 – THOR’S LOSS OF STATUS, OR, INTRINSIC WORTH

In this movie, Thor also has had his place taken from him. Although his birth is assured, his future is not. He has been outcast—presumably forever—from all of society, stripped of his station and his powers. But what this gives Thor, when everything around him has fallen away, is **knowing himself** , and he gains a sense of **freedom**. “For the first time in my life, I have no idea what I’m supposed to do,” Thor tells Selvig. And facing that challenge, he tries to do what he thinks is right, he tries to help people, he tries to accustom himself to where he is now instead of striving for what is impossible, and he gains the ability and opportunity to rely on himself, to measure himself and others by their worth instead of their station.

This is something he was always more inclined to do than Loki. In the scene where he is trying to persuade his friends to join him in a trip to Jotunheim, he says to Sif, “And who proved wrong all who scoffed at the idea that a young maiden could be one of the fiercest warriors this realm has ever known?”

“I did,” Sif answers, challengingly.

“True,” Thor concedes the point, “but I supported you.” In this scene, Thor is reminding the Warriors Three of all the wonderful things they have gained by going on adventures with him—food to persuade Volstagg, battle for Hogun, and (in the longer deleted scene version) women for Fandral—but Sif is a different matter. There doesn’t seem to be much Thor can say that would persuade Sif, so instead he brings up her own triumph, which like the others, was facilitated by Thor, but which belonged to her. It’s a backhanded compliment and an obviously fallacious claim that Sif calls him on, and Thor immediately gives ground. It also seems to be good-natured banter. By wording it like this also, it keeps the mood light, while if he had said instead, “ _And Sif, who supported you in your efforts to prove yourself to Asgard as a warrior?_ ” it would seem more like coercion, or that she owed him something, which Thor is obviously trying to avoid—the scene is one where he is trying to _win over_ his friends, not order them around.


	5. THOR 1 – REGAINING STATUS

“Our people need a sense of continuity in these difficult times. All of us must stand together. For the good of Asgard.”

Soon after the reveal that devastated everything Loki thought he knew about himself and his place, he is made regent in Odin’s temporary absence. That he is a king does not quell Loki’s fears; after all, he was given the kingship by Queen Frigga, his mother, and it is only a temporary position. His first actions are centered around trying to prove himself a war hero and defeater of Asgard’s enemies, protector of Asgard’s way of life. If this enemy happens to be the monsters of which Loki was born, so much the better. What Loki attempts to do here is similar to his grandfather Bor’s own actions against the Dark Elves, as is revealed in Thor 2, and Bor became greatly famed because of it. Unfortunately, his own attack does not work so well, and at the end of the movie, Odin, King of Asgard, reprimands him for his actions.

“I could have done it, father! I could have done it! For you! For all of us!” Loki said. Of course, Odin’s answer is, “No, Loki.” By refusing this, Odin says that Loki’s actions have not met approval by the King of Asgard, by one who claims to be his father. Loki could _not_ have done it. His work to regain his status has been futile. There _is_ no “all of us.”


	6. THE AVENGERS – REGAINING STATUS

In Thor 1, Loki’s disdain for the frost giants is palpable. When dealing with Laufey, he says, “once Odin is dead I will return the casket to you. And you can return Jotunheim to all its, uh… glory.”

Loki doesn’t even _bother_ to hide his opinions on Jotunheim’s “glory” and there is no way Laufey could miss it either. Yet despite this he is dealing with Laufey. Why? How does Laufey merit consideration when Jotuns are nothing but monsters? The answer is that Laufey has a force of arms, and therefore a threat to be respected; furthermore, he may be a monster, but he is, unequivocably, the leader, the king of them. Loki is speaking to Laufey as **one king to another** , a playing field in which they _are_ equals, while in other ways (Asgardian to Frost Giant) there could be no equality, respect of any kind, or consideration.

In _The Avengers_ , Loki sets himself up as leader of Earth’s invaders and of the force of the Chitauri. The Chitauri, it seems clear, are but monsters in Loki’s estimation. But then, so is Loki. He has raised his status by setting himself as their leader and by making himself a threat with arms behind it. In this way, he can respond to Thor as an equal (just as Laufey with Odin). Just as much, this position of relative power makes it clear that it is _Loki_ who has rejected the society of Asgard to be its enemy; that it was his choice to make himself “other” He was not cast out. In fact, he resists all of Thor’s entreaties to rejoin Asgardian society and to take back a place that is, in Loki’s opinion, a lie, and which he retains only on the sufferance of the royal family of Asgard.

And yet, when he first makes his way to Earth and introduces himself, he says, “I am Loki, of Asgard.”


	7. THE AVENGERS – THE HEROES OF EARTH AS MIRRORS FOR LOKI

“The bright lure of freedom diminishes your life’s joy in a mad scramble for power, for identity.”

Steve Rogers. Tony Stark. Bruce Banner. Natasha Romanoff. Clint Barton.

I don’t think it’s hard to argue that each reflects something of Loki, **as Loki sees them**. Captain America—the hero, the perfect representation of his society—he is Thor, everything Loki would like to be **not because he wants to be Thor** but because being Thor means being accepted in society as its leader and king, and not only accepted, but loved. In the deleted scene from Thor 2, Loki spends the time in his cell concocting illusions in which he, literally, loses himself and becomes someone different. Asgard cheers for his coronation. The Warriors Three love him and bow to him. Loki lifts Mjolnir, he is worthy of it.

It is interesting to note that in Thor 2, when he is creating illusions over himself and Thor, the Avenger he chooses to become is Captain America.

Iron Man. He is everything Loki was and wanted to be—high status, power and wealth, but he is liked and respected among his peers by what he has done and who he is as a person. It is Stark’s house that Loki chooses as the place for the Chitauri invasion; technically because it was his home that contained the sustainable energy needed to create the portal, but symbolically, Loki setting himself up in the tower has a greater meaning, and it is Loki and Tony’s clashes, out of all the Avengers, that are on the most equal ground.

“He wants flowers, he wants parades, he wants a monument built to the skies with his name plastered on it,” Tony says of Loki, reflecting a very good knowledge of Loki’s motivations for someone who hardly knows him. In their later confrontation in that very tower, he critiques Loki’s plan.

“You’re missing the point,” Tony tells him. “There’s no throne. There is no version of this where you come out on top.” This is something Loki most emphatically does not want to hear. Tony ends up so infuriating Loki that he throws him out of a window.

Loki says, “I have an army.” What he lacks in status he makes up for in threat and power over that threat. Tony brushes this aside, he’s not impressed. “We have a Hulk.”

The Hulk. “The mindless beast makes play to be a man”, Loki says of him. There is something particularly vindictive about the way Loki interacts with Banner. This is Loki. A monster playing at being a man. Not how the world should work, yet everything he wants. Worst of all, he’s _managed_ it. He is accepted into a group of heroes. He seems relatively at peace with himself. Everything Loki does is to tear down the trappings of control around Banner, to prove he is nothing more than a beast. It’s a twisted form of masochism.

Black Widow. She was raised among “monsters” and as one. She is not only a mortal, but a woman, who has managed to do with her life what Loki has not, against a past worse than his. “It’s really not that complicated,” Natasha says. “I’ve got red in my ledger, I’d like to wipe it out.”

“Can you?” Loki asks. “Can you wipe out that much red? … your ledger is dripping, its gushing red, and you think saving a man no more virtuous than yourself will change anything? This is the basest sentimentality.”

Though he has set himself as an enemy to gain status, Loki is desperately unhappy there. No matter how many times he refuses Thor’s pleas, he is always tempted by them. “Sentiment,” Loki says scathingly, as he stabs Thor in the side, but his eyes are filled with tears. Yes, it would be a wonderful thing to believe one could make amends for one’s crimes. In a way, Romanoff is more able to do this than he. She has made amends for her actions, but Loki has to deal with not only actions, but his self. “You’re a monster,” she says. Being a monster is not something she does not understand; it is part of what draws her to Banner in _Avengers: Age of Ultron_. But a monster that was created can still choose to be good; and it is Loki’s actions she is referring to here.

In Loki’s mind, a monster is what you are, with no choice at all.

Clint Barton. Poor Clint. He is mind-controlled almost from the first.

“What did [the tesseract] show you, Agent Barton?”

“My next target.”

Clint has been forced by the tesseract to go against his friends and his world. He is being literally controlled by something outside of himself. No matter how much coercion was involved in Loki’s decision to invade Earth at Thanos’ request, he is not in the same position as Barton. Loki takes pleasure in the fact that he has used the man to betray his people. That he has power over his mind. Barton’s situation is that of a pawn, trapped until the efforts of someone who loves him deeply, and whom he had saved, in return saves him. In a way, he is the only one whose relation to Loki is hard to put as some reflection of himself. The biggest similarity is that, though he is the soldier and Loki the King, they are both trapped, though Loki is trapped by himself instead of another. And they are both _not themselves_. Loki acts as a conquer from Asgard, he wears armour meant to be imposing and his ceremonial helmet. He is grasping at a place he says he no longer wants.

When he first appears through the tesseract’s portal, Loki says, “I come with glad tidings, of a world made free.”

“Free from what?” Nick Fury asks.

“Freedom. Freedom is life’s great lie. Once you accept that, in your heart… you will know peace.”

Barton has the peace, the distance from his self and his own mind and heart, that Loki craves.


	8. THOR 2 – FAMILY TIES

Odin, Frigga, Thor. All have tried to assure Loki of his place in their family, but Loki vehemently rejects this. To reject it is to reject a lie, and it means that his status won’t be dependent on their goodwill. In the deleted scene, he distracts himself from himself by putting himself in the shoes of others. “Cast enough illusions, and you risk forgetting what is real,” Frigga reminds him. “Precisely,” Loki answers. A madman and a fool cannot suffer. In the movie, Loki plays the part of comic relief. He falls easily into a rapport with Thor, taking every chance to tease and needle him. One assumes this is similar to the relationship they used to share, but there is a palpable desperation in Loki’s side. He has no energy left to argue that Thor is not his brother when Frigga has died, and together, they go on a quest of vengeance to avenge their mother. Loki’s own worries, though as tangled about him as ever, are pushed aside for this more important purpose. In the end, he watches Thor grieve for his death and replaces himself on the throne of Asgard in place of Odin. He may still be a monster, but now he is Asgard’s king. He has taken back by force and treachery what he feels he once had the right to, and his status is assured—as long as he pretends to be someone other than himself.


End file.
